


Binary System

by sekiharatae



Series: Day to Day Life [12]
Category: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII
Genre: Extended Metaphors, F/M, Introspection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-05-17
Updated: 2009-05-17
Packaged: 2021-03-03 20:41:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 403
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24851719
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sekiharatae/pseuds/sekiharatae
Summary: When it comes to Cloud, Tifa has a pull all her own.
Relationships: Tifa Lockhart/Cloud Strife
Series: Day to Day Life [12]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1794073
Kudos: 14





	Binary System

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [](https://fanfic50.livejournal.com/profile)[fanfic50](https://fanfic50.livejournal.com/), prompt #47 off of prompt table five: "captured".

His memories were fuzzy, but Cloud thought he’d been maybe seven or eight – at the most – when Tifa had first caught his attention. The pretty little girl next door, with her long hair and warm eyes and easy smile. She had been popular, while he had not, but that wasn’t what had drawn him. Her father had been big and important and larger than life, but that wasn’t what had fascinated him. It had been the fact that she always seemed so completely _happy_ , that had enthralled him. He’d wanted some of that joy for himself.

Some of the adults in town might have said she was spoiled. Cloud hadn’t cared: if it would have made her smile at him, notice him, he would have spoiled her himself. Given her all the riches his little eight year old heart had to offer.

Small and shy, rarely speaking – and clever and sarcastic when he did – he hadn’t fit in well with the other children. He’d tried to pretend it didn’t bother him: that he didn’t want to be included in their games, that they were silly and childish and he was better than that. His adoration of Tifa had revealed the lie for what it was. Her smiles and laughter had drawn him in, tethering him at the outermost edge of her sphere of friends. As if she were the sun, and he a comet or drifting satellite, captured by her gravitational pull. From that point on, he’d been unwilling and unable to break free. 

Only once in his entire life had he ever knowingly, of his own volition, tried.

When he’d gone to join SOLDIER, her pull had remained strong. She’d been the impetus, the force that started him moving, the stationary point around which all his hopes revolved

When he was confused and recovering from Hojo’s experiments, he’d still gravitated toward her. She’d helped him find his purpose, and then – later – helped him find himself. 

When they’d rebuilt their lives after Meteor, it had been together. His job took him all over the world, the distance between them erratic, varying; but he always returned to her. To home.   
  
It was only after he’d become sick with geostigma that he’d actually tried to escape. To truly leave her behind, before his orbit decayed and sent them both crashing down. 

That’s when he learned that, at some point, somehow, he’d captured her as well.


End file.
